


At Dawn

by Anonymous



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Beating, Cunnilingus, Emotional Baggage Over 9000, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-22
Updated: 2017-08-22
Packaged: 2018-12-18 13:59:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11875986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: "It should have been you watching the boss's back at Adamant," he said. "We both know it.""Yes," Cassandra said flatly. "Or Ser Blackwall. Only a fool would bringyouto fight demons."





	At Dawn

**Author's Note:**

  * For [placentalmammal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/placentalmammal/gifts).



There was precious little privacy at an Inquisition forward camps--the omnipresent Scout Harding always wanting to _chat_. The grunts of infant soldiers practicing their swordplay. Inquisitor Cadash herself, who could be found snoring in any spare moment she could carve out. But the bulk of the troops were out securing Caer Oswin tonight, led by some spare templar of Cullen's, and this left only a token perimeter guard watching the rest of the Inquisition's collection of tents and lean-tos.

 _You saw some shit today, Seeker,_ the Inquisitor said, shifting from foot to foot. She was as uncomfortable as Cassandra was, speaking of such things. Death, and sacrifice. And terrible, terrible waste. The death of her entire order. _Take the night off,_ Cadash added, after an long pause. _Let us do the heavy lifting for once. We’ve got this._

They had left the Iron Bull with her, likely with strict orders to simply sit on her if she tried to make her way to the keep. He was welcome to try. He sat across the main fire from her, fussing with something in his lap. It was one of those wooden puzzle games that came from Val Royeaux and assaulted Skyhold like a bout of winter cough. Cassandra found them infuriating—impossible—but his blunt, deft fingers assembled and disassembled it in the comfortable manner of Varric maintaining his crossbow.

"The trick is to keep the little red dots on either side of the center piece," he said, without looking up. "If you can do that, everything else comes together, no problem."

"I see," Cassandra replied. "I will keep that in mind, the next time Cullen tries to pass his on to me." Dreadful things. The one before this had had _bells_ in it. Everywhere she'd gone in Skyhold, the jingling had assailed her.

"You're not watching me because you want a look at my box." Duly, he set the thing aside. "Something on your mind, Seeker?"

As though he didn't know. As though he had not been at her side, her back, during the entire assault on the keep, prepared to shoulder blows with his own flesh if her shield failed. It would have been condescending, if she had not needed it sorely. If only as a reminder--that she could not falter. She had failed so many this day alone, but she would not fail her companions.

Cassandra cleared her throat in what she very much hoped was an assenting manner. She sounded as though she was being strangled.

"If you don't want to talk," said Bull, "you don't have to talk."

"If it had been your boy," Cassandra said, before she could lose her nerve, adding another piece of wood to the fire. "Your lieutenant. Your—Cremisius. Would you have done the same?"

"What, put him down?" he asked.

"Released him from his suffering," she clarified. He would not see her flinch from this.

"Sure," said Bull. He had flirted with her extravagantly in the past, but never had she heard him sound so... sanguine."If he asked me to, I would've. I've done it before."

In those words, there was a story. She was not in a place to hear it.

"But—if he was not in his right mind. If we could have dragged him back," Cassandra said. Maker preserve her, she was not Leliana, to drive herself mad chasing what might have been. "If--if Dagna could have done something for him. We have mages, and healers."

"Depends. Could we have sacrificed anyone to drag him back? Me? The boss? Lady Vivienne?"

They could not have. They both knew it, and there was no reason to discuss it further.

"Come on," Bull said, standing up from his appointed stump. Numbly, for want of anything better to do with herself, she followed him as he walked to the edge of the clearing and had a word with the two guards standing there—young girls, not old or experienced enough to be at Caer Oswin with their Herald—and offered to take their shift for them. The girls glanced from Bull to Cassandra, then decided it was in their best interest

The rest of the night, she spent staring into the woods, in contemplation, while Bull kept watch, his companionable silence at her side.

"Thank you," she said, once the sun came up.

"It's just what I'd want someone to do for me," Bull said, and clapped her on the back, and headed to his tent.

*

It was not so long after this that the Inquisition marched on Adamant, and after some furore in the war room—Lady Josephine was forced to stand on a stool to be heard over Cullen and Inquisitor Cadash's argument—it was decided that Cassandra, despite her extensive experience with demons, despite her strong sword-arm, _despite_ her earnest desire to break herself on those fortress walls—should be the one to stay behind and take over the running of the army in Cullen's absence. And to continue running it, in the event of his death.

Cadash at least had the grace to look guilty as she made the pronouncement. After Caer Oswin, she no longer took Cassandra into the field with her. It was no tremendous loss; they had never been close, and Cassandra could be useful to the Inquisition in any number of other ways.

This was not to say it did not sting. But Cullen's captains treated her with an amused courtesy, and brought her endless papers to put her name and seal to. At first, she made an effort to read each and every one of them, and to understand the arcane matters of budget and finance. She even brought Lady Josephine in to help her to decode Cullen's ledgers, while one of his aides looked on unhappily. But it gradually became apparent that the army was well in hand, and all Cassandra need do was stride around in plate and shout at recruits to keep their shields up.

She could fix a farmgirl's terrible form. There was even a satisfaction in it, on this clear, autumn morning in the valley below Skyhold. She had—she had not been Daniel's tutor, not in fighting, only a sparring partner and a spiritual mentor. Cassandra had introduced him to Galyan, once, when Daniel was a lean, lanky boy, yet to grow into his bulk, and Galyan had said—

The girl she was working on was at least savvy enough to notice Cassandra's moment of distraction, and use it to make an attempt at disarming her. It did not work, of course, and the shock clarified her thoughts.

News of the Inquisitor's walk in the Fade reached Skyhold before the troops themselves returned. And rumors, too—Divine Justinia had walked with them. No, it had been a spectral dragon, which had. _No_ , it was

The debriefing was short. They'd broken the fortress. They'd walked physically into the Fade, battled a great demon, and come out. It was natural to seek out a Seeker, in the wake of such an event.

Vivienne invited Cassandra to a salon, where Cassandra, in her cleanest and least-patched shirt, sat like a great bear amongst Vivienne's visiting supplicants. Sera spent a long afternoon dogging her heels, brimming with nervous questions about what she had seen, and asking none of them.

Cassandra, having no particular schedule at Skyhold when she was not in the valley doing her best impression of Cullen or being trotted out in front of Nevarran nobles like Leliana and Lady Josephine's personal blackpowder cannon, rose early on principle. Before daybreak, she lit the torches before her favorite dummy and practiced her forms. When the sun rose, she went to the baths, where there was a predictable lull between the servants' morning ablutions and the clerks'. After a brisk wash in cold water, she ate breakfast, and waited for the day to present her with things to do. And so on, until Cadash had somewhere to send her.

And Iron Bull found her in the smallest hours of the morning.

She had hardly begun to warm up. When she spotted his bulk in the distance, she paused in her beating of the dummy. There were shadows under Bull's eyes, she saw, as he came into the low torchlight.

"Hey," he said.

"Good morning." Cassandra sheathed her sword.

He held a quarterstaff in his hand. But he only carried one with him, and looked haunted. There were dark shadows under his eyes.

The Chargers had left to take down what was left of Adamant, the day before. Cullen had kept them from the fighting at the battle proper, reasoning that if the bulk of their forces perished at the fortress, they would need at least one strong regiment. But the Inquisitor had taken Bull with her.

No one had seen much of Bull, since the army had returned to Skyhold.

"If you've come to spar, I am not ready yet," she said, leaning on the dummy. The torchlight gave his face a copper cast. "I do not take on opponents before lunch."

Bull shrugged massively. "I wanted to ask you a favor," he said, and his mouth twisted. The Iron Bull was charming and polished, never awkward, a veritable Josephine; Cassandra could not think of a time she'd seen him unsure of himself. Uncomfortable.

Cassandra nodded. She knew the feeling.

"There's this thing qunari do, when we've gotten out of a battle with, you know. Bad shit."

"Like the Fade itself." Another person flocking to her for a comfort she was not able to give them, except in their imaginations. She was not a restful personage.

"Yeah. For when we need to get our heads right, get our edge back."

He held out the quarterstaff, and Cassandra apprehended his meaning. "I do not beat people for enjoyment," she said, crossing her arms. "If you wish to make it a fair fight, we can duel this afternoon."

Bull's frown twisted deeper. She had seen his appraising looks at others, when he thought she was not paying attention--taking their acceptance of them in, and revising his approach. Leliana had this trick, as well. It was infuriating to watch her adjust and readjust herself in company (why could she not simply be who she _was_?) but here, Bull gave her that look openly.

"It should have been you watching the boss's back at Adamant," he said. "We both know it."

"Yes," Cassandra said flatly. "Or Ser Blackwall. Only a fool would bring _you_ to fight demons."

"Ouch," Bull replied, but at least he smiled--good, she had not gone too far.

"Against a band of highwaymen, I would have no other at my side," she added. "But to take you and Sera to fight corrupted Wardens was foolish."

"Look. I just want you to hit me," Bull said. "I'm not getting anything out of it except—"

"A sense of control. Yes, I understand the principle." Twenty years of Orlesians trying to be scandalous in the presence of Chantry sisters was a thorough education.

"If I offended...."

In the time it had taken them to speak, the light had risen above Skyhold's roofline; the way it hit Bull's shoulders, just so, was a very strong argument in his favor. The way it lit the circles under his eyes was an even stronger one. In the end, he was no different from any of her other companions in need--and what of her own needs? At least this would be doing something, and not sitting uncomfortably at tea, or weathering a constant stream of patter, or receiving endless confessions. She had done of so little use, lately.

It was a weak rationale.

"Give me the staff," she said, and Bull seemed visibly relieved.

It was a heavy quarterstaff: not meant for friendly sparring, but for shattering the bones of the unsuspecting. Cassandra handled heavier greatswords on a regular basis, however, and as she tested its weight and balance, he presented her his back. With the tips of his fingers, he held onto her practice dummy. Thank the Maker she had requested a sturdy wooden one for this morning.

"Is there a text I should recite before I begin?" she asked. She knew nothing of the qunari faith, except that it was not a faith at all, as she understood faith. "Some rite of cleansing?"

"No, you hit me," Bull said. "There's nothing holy about this, Seeker."

He had come to her with a profession of some spiritual weakness; what passed between them was by definition sacred. But she would not contest his thinking. Without another word, Cassandra walked in a half-arc around him, and landed a blow squarely between his shoulderblades. He grunted and muttered something about demons. Another blow, to the same spot, and he groaned, furiously.

"That all you've got?" he asked. "Two little hits?"

"With this, I could crack your ribs," she said, prodding the tip of his staff between his bones. He did not move away from her provocation, but he kept his face to the training dummy's chest. "Is that what you want?"

"Come on," Bull said, "do your worst."

And so she did.

It was better than her morning practice would have been. Even with the cool autumn breeze--there would be rain today, she felt it in her joints--she found herself sweating from the exertion. She worked her way down his back. She beat his ribs to within an inch of his tolerance, as he howled about the demons he'd encountered, and when she grew bored with this, she bade him turn around so she could work her way down the front of his body, and watch the way his face contorted in pain.

She had been wrong. There was nothing sacred about the singing in her blood, as she lowered the staff. What she felt, watching him pant and curse his enemies, had nothing to do with grace or compassion. Very suddenly, she felt empty. Tired.

When she met Bull's eyes, he looked as though he felt the same way. But a healer walked past them, on her way to the infirmary, and there was a shouting from the tavern kitchen as the bartender and his servers prepared breakfast. The quartermaster scurried into his office to count grain, or whatever it was he did. Skyhold awoke, and shattered the stillness that had grown between them.

"I hope I could be of some--assistance," Cassandra said, and then passed him the staff. He took it from her numb fingers.

"Yeah." Bull gave his head a minute shake. "Want to get some breakfast?"

Maker. And look people in the eyes, in her state? "I will see you later, Bull," she said, and walked--slowly and deliberately--away from him.

*

At the very least, the incident caused her to _do_ something. Cassandra marched directly into Cullen's office after breakfast, and walked out with an assignment: to find an abomination stalking the hamlets that fringed the edges of the Emerald Graves. After two months of the hunt, it so happened that there was no abomination at all, only a pack of overbold wolves with a taste for fat Dales sheep, and a village headsman fomenting rebellion in order to hide his theft of the crown's taxes.

So it went. She returned to Skyhold refreshed, having put something right in a small corner of the world. It could not make up for her failures--as a protector of those she cared for, and as a friend--and she did, she realized, remembering the vibration of impact traveling up her wrists, consider the Iron Bull a friend--but one did what one could. It was far better to make amends than to seek absolution.

Her return was overshadowed by far bigger news: the Chargers were returning within the week, having reduced Adamant Fortress to rubble. In the six weeks she'd been gone, Bull had improved noticeably, at least to her eyes. She watched him playing cards with Varric and Sera from Vivienne's balcony, and watched him teaching Cullen's infant soldiers how to take down opponents his size. When two of them became frustrated and ganged up on him to knock him off his feet, he went down laughing.

Cassandra had never been stealthy in her life. He saw her staring at him as he grappled in the dirt with the recruits. She averted her gaze.

There was, she thought, no reason to be this uncomfortable: what had passed between them that morning had not been innocent, no, but she was being ridiculous. She would take Bull aside after this practice, and she would make pleasant conversation with him.

But Leliana sent a runner down to the valley for her and Cullen before the practice was finished, with a message about a meeting in the War Room that had very much _not_ been on either of their agendas for the day, which turned out to have been an attempt on the ambassador's life, which was in turn the culmination of a series of incidents no one had bothered to tell Cassandra about since she'd returned.

"You've never asked," Lady Josephine said, closing her eyes and nursing the shallow cut to her neck. "I didn't think it appropriate to bring it up; you've been very busy, and the Inquisitor and I have the situation well in hand, don't we?"

Leliana was white-lipped with fury, and Inquisitor Cadash looked irritated. They did not have the situation _well in hand,_ then. Cullen was already turning to Cassandra to discuss changes in the guard rotation, which was to say, to rehearse what he would say to his captains later. Cassandra listened, and nodded at the appropriate moments.

Here was another situation where she was of no particular, immediate use, except as a symbol. When this was over, she would need to demand more field-work from Cullen.

She took it upon herself to patrol the lower levels of Skyhold that night—not the servants' quarters and the clerks' dormitories, but the sub-libraries and the larders; the storage rooms full of crumbling, ancient furniture the Inquisition's carpenters had not yet managed to salvage wood and metal from; a repository of the Inquisitor's exotic alcohols, which no one dared steal.

There were tunnels that were even less-used, too, and, gripping her sword and ensuring the light she'd had a mage in the library enchant for her was not yet dimming, she plunged down one of them.

At the end of it, she saw a light. This hall, if she remembered correctly, was empty rooms, not large enough for storage or for habitation. But someone had taken up residence in one, it seemed. Cole, perhaps; he seemed the type. Or lovers using it for an assignation. Or a scholar who needed privacy. Or a Venatori spy. Whoever it was, they would need to be evicted.

It was Iron Bull. His harness was curled neatly atop a pile of trousers in the corner. He at seated with his feet up at a desk that was comically small for him, poring over a book he rested on his belly, and as she kicked the door in he only looked up.

"Hey," Bull said. "I figured it was either you or Leliana coming down the hall."

"What are you _doing_ down here?" Cassandra snapped.

"I can't sleep in an empty barracks," Bull said, one eye on his book. "This is a nice place." And he gestured behind him.

A brace of candles lit the desk, but the illumination on the bed—and, Maker, what a large bed—came from a wide window set into the very base of the keep. Two of its panes were broken, and a cool breeze whistled softly through them. They were at the level of the Undercroft, perhaps; Cassandra could hear rushing water.

"I see," she said.

"And how'd you end up down here?"

"I'm patrolling."

"They've got you on that thing with Josie, too?"

"How do _you_ know about that?"

Bull put a ragged piece of cloth in the book to mark his place. "I listen. The aide who was with her when it happened was talking about it with a runner and a couple of cooks at the tavern tonight," he said. "Two captains were complaining about the complaining they'd have to deal with, with the patrol changes. You may as well come in, if you want to talk."

Cassandra cast about for a compelling reason to refuse him, and when she found none, she closed the door behind her and leaned against it. Her sheathed sword bumped against it, overloud in the heavy quiet. If circumstances had not intervened, she would have spoken to him today; there was no reason to drag it out.

"How were the Graves?" Bull asked, before Cassandra could drive herself mad thinking of something to begin with. Graciously, he'd swung his legs off the desk.

"They were emerald," Cassandra said firmly. "Quite green."

This, apparently, was very funny. She had not intended it to be, but to know her sudden flight hadn't damaged what relationship they had—it was a balm. _He's like Leliana,_ she thought, before she could become too comfortable. _He would not let you see him uncomfortable if there was not a purpose to it._ But this was not a laugh had at her expense.

She had left her hair down, for the patrol. She wore nothing but a long nightshirt, an elderly leather breastplate, and thin leggings. "I did not expect to find anything down here," she said, gesturing to her clothes, then walking around him to sit on his bed. Just who _had_ he bribed to carry it down here for him? Vivienne must have had a hand in it; she was for ever ordering Skyhold's furniture rearranged.

It creaked when she sat down.

"It would've been a good fight if you had," Bull said, swiveling in his chair to look at her. "I didn't figure you for the nightgown type."

"This is not a nightgown. There is no lace."

"Is that the difference?"

"I sleep in full plate, most nights," said Cassandra. "I thought I would relax for the occasion. Imagine if someone saw us like this, Bull! There would be a scandal."

"Like what?" Bull sat back against his desk. "We're just talking."

The air between them became heavy. Here were the facts: she had watched him shudder at dawn, as she lanced some poison in his soul. She had enjoyed the sight as she'd enjoyed fighting alongside him, before the Inquisitor had decided her own shield was enough.

"Talking," she repeated.

"Just talking." Bull looked perfectly content to sit across the room from her, as though she hadn't beaten to him to within an inch of his life, then fled Skyhold for two months. "Nothing you don't want," he said. "Want me to get up and leave? I'll go."

"I did not tell you to _stop._ I only want you to—"

Bull waited patiently for her to find what she meant. That would not do. Cassandra Pentaghast had many poor qualities, but _dithering_ was not among them.

"Come here," she said.

He went to her.

She backed up against the headboard to make room for his body in the bed with her. With him on it, it did not seem half so large, but she would not feel crowded. "That morning," she began.

"We both wanted it," Bull said.

"I went too far," Cassandra replied. "As penance, it was excessive."

"It was what I needed. If I'd wanted you to stop, I could have stopped you."

He kept a polite distance from her, waiting for her assent to come closer. The two thoughts were intoxicating, when put aside one another: an unstoppable force to her immovable object, but a force that would only move at her command, here and now.

She had never felt this way with Galyan. Everything about Galyan had been familiar to her, comfortable; they had worn one another's edges smooth with time, until they fit together neatly. But Galyan was gone. There were even days when she woke up without a gaping hole in her chest where he'd been. To say nothing of Beatrix, Justinia, Daniel. "As you say," she said. Bull knew his own mind far better than she did. If he had any lingering resentments, he would say so. "I suppose we might have spoken about this months ago, and saved me a half-dozen fights with wolves."

"That's what you were up to?"

"They weren't even demon wolves," Cassandra said. "Sadly."

This produced another chuckle from him, one that she _felt,_ in the space separating them.

"Look," Bull said, pressing his advantage, as he might in a fight, "if you ever want to do that again...."

"I do not have much practice at beating a stationary target," she said. "I may consider it."

Hauteur did not suit her, she decided, in that moment. Best to leave it to the Viviennes of the world. Bull's closeness... muddled her thoughts.

"Anything I can do to sway you?"

"You may kiss me," she said, lest she lose her nerve. He -had- propositioned her. He had never rescinded the offer.

The moons loomed in the window next to them; the candles across the room sputtered. The mage-light that had followed Cassandra sat decorously outside the door. Everything about the moment was correct, but Bull only raised an eyebrow and said nothing.

Her face burned, and she forged on: "Or you may find me and ask me, and we can speak on it when we're not exhausted, and forget this conversation ever happened, Bull. Forgive me; I am not thinking."

Before she move to stand, Bull caught her hand. He pressed his lips the inside of her wrist.

And he asked: "Kiss you where?"

*

"You must understand," she said, afterward, once she could speak. "I am not looking for a... relationship. I should have made that clear from the start."

Bull lay with his head on her stomach, the point of his chin digging into her. Her breastplate was forgotten on the floor in the pile with his harness. One of her legs was still over his shoulder.

"Sure," he said, plainly. She waited for his protestations of deceit, but they were not forthcoming.

She'd allowed him to bite her stomach, her chest. He had asked before each one, like a supplicant. She could become used to this, but only _this,_ alone, in the quiet together.

"It's whatever you want it to be," Bull said, gazing drowsily up at her, almost dazed. "Sleep here tonight, or don't."

He looked very peaceful, in the low candlelight. Cassandra could not bring herself to disturb him. And surely he had his own needs to think of, but he had said nothing of them, and brushed off her momentary concerns—so be it. "I will stay," she murmured, stroking the skin between his horns. She pulled him up her body, and held him from behind, and felt herself slip into slumber. 


End file.
